Faced with Aokiji's question, Ren quickly waved his hands. "Whoa, whoa, whoa. You can eat whatever you want, but you can't just say whatever you want. What do you mean 'we' provoked the Celestial Dragons? That piece of trash attacked us out of nowhere. We were just defending ourselves out of necessity."
As for Aokiji, Ren felt a deep-seated dislike for him!
In the early days of One Piece, he actually liked this lazy character. But later, after the man joined forces with the Blackbeard Pirates to deal with Garp, Ren's heart became filled with nothing but loathing for him.
Naturally, he wasn't going to give Aokiji any face, especially now that they were standing on opposite sides.
Aokiji was long accustomed to the foul mouths of pirates. Even being cursed at by Ren, he maintained his listless, lethargic expression. "You could have just sailed away," he said lazily. "To ensure the travel experience of the Celestial Dragons, their cruise ships are intentionally made very slow."
"Run away? Where's the pride in that?" Ren tilted his head and extended a hand, pointing a finger directly at Aokiji. "Admiral, I wonder if you can handle my 'flash'?"
"Hmm?"
Just as Aokiji was wondering what Ren meant by "flash," he saw a terrifying amount of energy beginning to gather at the tip of Ren's finger.
Danger! Danger! Danger!
His peak-level Observation Haki began screaming a frantic warning. In an instant, Aokiji felt his scalp go numb, and his entire body was drenched in a cold sweat.
Without a second's hesitation, Aokiji immediately deployed Soru, his body vanishing from his spot instantly!
But that horrific sense of crisis didn't vanish; if anything, it grew stronger. The next moment, Aokiji felt a massive force slam into his abdomen. A wrenching pain, as if his internal organs were being rearranged, flooded his brain.
Looking up, he saw that Ren had somehow kept pace with him, burying a fist deep into his gut!
Under that colossal strength, even a monster like Aokiji couldn't help but have his features twist in agony, his eyes bulging. He coughed up a mouthful of bile.
BOOM!!!
Aokiji's body was sent flying, crashing into the ice. The frozen surface shattered instantly, forming a bottomless crevasse that stretched into the distance.
Ren looked at the crack and clicked his tongue. "Just how deep did you freeze this sea, anyway?"
Despite the mocking tone, Ren didn't let down his guard for a second. Rare as it was to find a worthy opponent, he planned to use only his Haki and physical prowess for a while to see how his Haki stacked up against an Admiral.
BOOM!
A dark silhouette burst from the ice, a domineering aura crashing against Ren's body.
"Conqueror's Haki? You think you're the only one?" Ren laughed, and his own Conqueror's Haki erupted without restraint!
Rumble—!
The auras of two world-class "Kings" collided. In an instant, the world changed color. The clear sky was suddenly blanketed by dark clouds, and black lightning snaked through the void, the air crackling with the sound of static.
Conqueror's Haki? This kid has already mastered the Color of the Supreme King?! Alarm bells rang in Aokiji's mind. He completely discarded any lingering thoughts of looking down on Ren. From this moment on, he would treat Ren as a powerhouse on his own level.
Their gazes locked in the void. Simultaneously, they lunged, their bodies turning into afterimages as they charged at each other.
Both threw a punch. The most tyrannical Conqueror's Haki was entwined around their fists, turning them into the sharpest spears in existence. Their fists swung out, but they didn't actually touch; instead, they were separated by an invisible barrier of sheer force.
Rumble—!
Black lightning danced between their knuckles. Aokiji's eyes widened in disbelief. "You can even use that level of advanced Haki... Kid, what kind of monster are you, and where did you come from?"
"Why the shocked face? Are you saying people from the four blues shouldn't know Haki? That we should just be ignorant puppets our whole lives?"
Aokiji's expression darkened significantly at Ren's words. "Kid... just how much do you know?!"
Ren grinned, staring straight into Aokiji's eyes. "Want to find out? Beat me, and I'll tell you."
"Young man... you're too arrogant!"
Both increased their power. Under their monstrous strength, the ice beneath their feet caved in as if struck by a meteor. Simultaneously, the clouds above were pushed upward by the sheer pressure, forming a distinct, circular hole directly over their heads.
In the next moment, their power fully erupted. A terrifying pillar of spirit soared into the sky, instantly scattering the dark clouds and allowing the bright sunlight to fall upon the ice once more.
Ren rubbed his wrist and looked at Aokiji. "As expected of a Marine Admiral. You really are as strong as a monster!"
Even though Ren wasn't using powers from other worlds, his baseline physical stats were god-tier, combined with the constitution of a Vasto Lorde. He was objectively stronger than a human like Aokiji. Yet, the lazy Admiral had managed to go toe-to-toe with him using sheer Haki and physical conditioning. It was clear that despite his slacker attitude, Aokiji never neglected his training.
However, after confirming that his Haki and physical strength alone were superior to an Admiral's, Ren lost interest in continuing the brawl.
Nearby, Aokiji sat amidst the ice, his face full of bitterness. Before coming here, he never imagined that an Admiral who had trained in physical arts for decades would lose a raw strength contest to a rookie. He could feel that his internal organs had suffered fractures from the shockwaves; every breath was a sharp sting.
Then he looked at Ren. The kid looked perfectly fine—and even worse, that white energy was gathering at his fingertip again.
"Hey, hey... I'm an injured man right now. Can't you show some sympathy?" Aokiji stood up with difficulty, cold air erupting from his body until the very atmosphere seemed ready to freeze solid.
"Injured men don't drop the temperature to negative 180 degrees."
Ren didn't stop. The Cero at his fingertip condensed and finished forming in a heartbeat. "Admiral, can you take this one?"
Aokiji barely had time to look up before he was blanketed in light.
"Ice Block: Pheasant Beak!"
On that day, Aokiji became the light.
BOOM—!!
An impossibly large Cero tore through the sea and shot into the sky, vaporizing the distant clouds. Looking up, it looked as if a giant hand had parted the heavens down the middle.
"I guess this counts as a 'planetary parting' punch?" Ren smiled. Looking at the now-comatose, dying Aokiji, he pondered whether to finish him off. I've already killed Blackbeard, so Aokiji won't be joining his crew in the future...
After a moment, Ren raised his hand. A blood-red Rasengan, condensed from pure slaughterous intent, gathered in his palm.
"I'm a kind-hearted person. Whether you survive or not depends on your own luck."
With that, he tossed the red orb toward the downed Admiral and vanished instantly, returning to Law and the others.
BOOM—!!
A mushroom cloud soared into the sky, staining the world in a blinding, crimson hue!